If this is happy: 2010 should be a good New Year for Watford Fans

What is happiness for a football fan? I argue that the elements are largely in place for followers of the Vicarage Road club.

Only two weeks ago I was at work telling people Watford had gone into administration, having left home before the deadline for a deal was due but fearing it would not happen. Despite a home defeat to Derby straight afterwards, I have since been reflecting on the factors in the equation of what makes a football fan happy with their lot.

First of all, there is the relative league postion of the club. The key word here is “relative” because it relates to two things, the first of which is the expectations of the fan. As with all the elements in the equation, this is subjective.I grew up watching the Horns on their rise from the old Division 4 to second in the old Division 1 and UEFA Cup football and an FA Cup final. For a while after that, my expectations were of top-flight football but thoughts of that era have long since passed. Nostalgia is dangerous, after all.

With the financial meltdown the club have suffered since their season as the Premiership´s basement boys – and more specifically the fact that we sold most of best players this summer and many of us feared we would be relegation fodder – expectations were low and therefore even a mid-table position exceeds them. Recent draws at home to high-flying Nottingham Forest and away at Bristol City´s Ashton Gate are results many of us would have taken beforehand and solidify our safety for the season.

The second part of happiness with the relative position of the club is a fan´s eye on the competition. This could be described as a sort of schadenfreude factor. For Watford fans, this would primarily mean laughing at our bitterest local rivals: Luton Town, whose descent to non-league status after a 30-point deduction last season most of us would recognise as unfair (but would still take some satisfaction from). I personally wish them a speedy return.

Queens Park Rangers would be our second local rivals and although the billionaire club are generally on the up, our recent 3-1 defeat of them at the Vic and the fall-out from that game (with their now ex-manager Jim Magilton involved in a post-match “incident” with midfielder Akos Buzasky) was a source of glee.

There is also a large slice of schadenfreude in seeing Brendan Rodgers fail at Reading (and recently receive the sack) after we felt betrayed by his decision to move away from the Vic after six months. Similarly, seeing our ex-defender Mike Williamson fail to make an impact – or even start a match – at Portsmouth after his petulant behaviour and transfer demand brings a wry smile to Hornets fans´ faces.

Another (perhaps less important) element of happiness goes beyond results and their effect on league position to style of play. When Watford were higher in the league but playing hoofball under former manager Aidy Boothroyd, there was booing amongst some of those attending the Vic.

I was wrong to doubt the credentials of manager Malky Mackay when he was named successor to Rodgers. He has ensured the team play some attractive football and has made shrewd signings (including loanees) which have seen the Horns outplay some far bigger teams. Whilst the January transfer window will likely see his team further depleted, Malky should be able to keep the young team on the rails (as he has after heavy defeats this season) and on track for a mid-table finish.

It is happiness regarding future prospects that leaves Watford fans with an element of uncertainty. Although billionaire shareholder Michael Ashcroft paid off the (approximately five-million-pound) loan that was being called in and therefore threatening the club with administration, he seems reluctant to invest the money that would make our future more certain.

The final element involved in the happiness of a football fan might involve a cup run. This looks unlikely for Watford this season with their impending FA Cup Third round tie at Stamford Bridge, but defeat at Chelsea will be more lucrative than one elsewhere and gives the fans a good day out. Expectations will not be high and can therefore not be disappointed.

So I have identified five elements in an equation that I feel contribute to a fan´s happiness and believe Watford fans can feel happy in relation to them. Have I missed any factors? What else is involved in a fan´s happiness? Can you be happy with your team in relation to these factors?

Kiva loan first repayment

At the end of October I blogged about Kiva, a microcredit organisation that helped facilitate loans from people like me to entrepreneurs who couldn´t access the traditional financial system because they did not have the requisite capital. I lent a group called Emprendedores de Sicuani $25 to help them acquire merchandise. Today I had my first repayment of one-third of the amount.

Since I have credit on my pay-pal account (due to winning a prize for my “Video technology in football” piece), I decided to make another loan now that I can see the money is paid back. I chose to lend another $25 to Manuela, a woman who lives in the city of Pucallpa, which Jun and I will be visiting in the new year. Manuela is a single mother of two children and sells general merchandise from a small store set up in her home. She needs a 2000 sol loan to buy grocery items and beverages to sell in her store.

I encourage all who would like to help alleviate poverty in the world to sign up to Kiva and make a loan to someone who is trying to help themselves. It feels great and all this at no cost to you.

The Ten Key Footballing Moments of the Decade

This is my second "..of the decade" list. These things are always subjective and I am ready for the backlash: the list is unashamedly based on the view of an English football fan and includes five on-pitch and five off-pitch moments.

England beat Germany 5-1 in Munich
After Keegan´s walkout, England fans feared not making the Japan-Korea World Cup. Sven Göran Eriksson inspired the national team to a series of victories in the remaining qualifiers, and the icing on the cake was this 1st September 2001 win, in which Michael Owen notched a hat-trick. The Germans being Germans, they still went on to be the most successful European side in the following year´s World Cup Finals.

The Collapse of ITV Digital
The cost of the football rights was the main reason for the 2002 liquidaton of the company and its failure to be forced to pay (the Football League´s lawyers – Hammonds – were sued for 150 million pounds but asked to pay only four pounds in damages) meant it was the league teams which suffered, having budgeted for the television contract.

A ten point penalty for entering administration
Football league club woes were added to two years later when the league introduced a penalty for those clubs entering administration (a procedure allowing businesses to keep operating without being forced to sell assests in order to pay their debts). This has affected a number of clubs – most recently Southampton – and threatens more this season. In addition, there has been an increase in the number of teams having points deducted for other (often related) reasons and that the number of points deducted has shown a gradual increase (ask Luton fans).

France 0 Senegal 1
Pape Bouba Diop´s goal provided one of the biggest World Cup shocks in history. The holders went out at the first hurdle without scoring a goal and unfancied teams such as South Korea, Japan and Turkey performed far better than anyone expected. The trend in non-favourites exceeding expectations continued into Euro 2004, and culminated with Greece winning that competition.

Leeds implode
After 14 years in the top flight and extensive loans taken out to chase the dream (I´m not sure they quite lived it), Leeds went into freefall and – after suffering a ten point deduction as outlined above – plunged to football´s third tier. The financial problems associated with adapting to relegation from the English Premier League have been experienced more recently by a number of teams including Charlton.

Abramovich buys Chelsea
While many Football League clubs were impoverished, in 2003 the world´s super-rich began to see the English Premier League as an outlet for the pesky interest on their billions. Roman bought Chelsea back to back titles (with no little help from Jose Mourinho) and since then Aston Villa, Liverpool, Manchester City (twice), Manchester United, Portsmouth (twice) and most recently Birmingham have been sold to foreign owners, though admittedly with differing levels of benefits to the clubs concerned.

Zidane uses his head
“Magic is sometimes very close to nothing at all”: the thoughts of the great French player some time before he headbutts Mazerrati and ends his final professional match as the first man to be sent off in a World Cup Final.

Andres Iniesta scores against Chelsea
The late late Barcelona goal prevented a second all-English final in a row, which would have been the first time ANY two teams met in consecutive European Cup/Champions League Finals. Much of the world felt grateful until they were forced to sit through the lamentable Manchester United – Barcelona final.

Spain win Euro 2008
The “perennial underachievers” ™ finally shrugged off that title in style.

Real go for Galacticos II
After Barcelona´s fine year, their great Spanish rivals Real Madrid went on a spending spree to shame Roman Abramovich, yet their purchase of Manchester United´s Cristiano Ronaldo and Liverpool´s Xabi Alonoso may prove to benefit Chelsea more than anyone else in English football. The resurgence in Spanish football might also see a decline in English clubs recent (relative) domination of the final stages of the Champions League.

How wrong did I get it? What would you include in your key footballing moments of the decade?

The inconsistent unpredictable Championship

The Nobel Prize winning Danish physicist Niels Bohr famously stated “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future”. I cannot better that, but would like to add that it is made that little more difficult by inconsistency in the elements that you are basing that prediction on.

Sportingo writer Donna Gee was a little hard on herself in claiming that she had been foolish with her assertion that the Championship was the most competitive league in Europe (shortly before seeing Newcastle and West Bromwich Albion begin to run away with things at the top, much in the manner of the boring Chelsea and Manchester United domination of the Premiership).

With her beloved Cardiff beating West Brom at the the Hawthorns yesterday (shortly after a run of one point in four matches had ended), they are back up to third just three days after she was bemoaning them dropping out of the play-off positions. Meanwhile, Leicester, who had suffered only one defeat in ten games to see them enter December in third place, lost two on the trot to immediate rivals, conceding eight goals in the process and dropping to seventh.

It seems clear that the best prediction concerning the play-off positions of the Championship (at this stage at least) is that it will remain unpredictable. Indeed, the only element at the top of the table with a degree of consistency is Newcastle´s home record. They are not too poor away, either, and I would not be surprised to see them dominate this league the same way Wigan and Reading did when they were Champions.

Although West Brom are a good footballing side, three defeats at home already this season indicates that they are not going to maintain a steady challenge to the Magpies. They might well end up second, but I reckon there will be fewer points between them and third than there are between them and Newcastle.

Hmmm, this prediction lark is fun, isn´t it?

For further unpredictability, however, look no further than Middlesborough, who thrashed QPR 5-1 at Loftus Road on Saturday only to lose at home 3-0 to Blackpool days later, with the Tangerines just getting over their first home defeat of the season, and this by mid-table Barnsley.

QPR, like Leicester, also conceded eight goals in two defeats and have dropped to twelfth from fifth. So now Swansea and Nottingham Forest, who each took a mediocre four points from the last six, seem to be on the front foot, while a meagre one win in three matches has taken Blackpool back into the play-off places.

The pattern of unpredictability in the bigger picture can be broken down. Just about any team who goes on a good run of four or five games (let´s say winning ten or twelve points from them) will likely have a place in the play-off positions at the end of it.

Even Watford, who have consistently lost one match for each win since the end of September, briefly found themselves in a giddy sixth position after beating QPR 3-1 on Monday night. When your average point rate is less than one and a half per game (as the Hornets´ is since back to back wins in early September), you should not really find yourself moving upwards in the league.

Not, unless, this is indeed a competitive league where most teams have the potential to beat each other, precluding consistency and defying prediction.

Look at Reading, who appear to be withering away hopelessly in nineteenth position in the league until you realise that there are as many points (eleven) between them and sixth place as there are between sixth and top of the table. It may not seem any comfort for them at the moment, but that gap is bridgable, though whether Brendan Rogers is the man to provide the results to span it is another question.

I think Newcastle will take this league at a canter but as for the positions immediately below them, I think it is fair to assume that there will be lots more comings and goings yet. And if I am wrong? Donna, I hope you will stick up for me.

My 10 top films of the decade

December means "list time" and we can do a whole decade. List number 1...films in no particular order.

Donnie Darko
It has to be Richard Kelly´s director´s cut if you are to get near to understanding the fluffy rabbit.
Mulholland drive
David Lynch weirdness with the movie as masturbatory fantasy, gotta love it.
Memento
Chilling tale of revenge all cut up that just edges Irreversible out of this list.
Mclibel
In a decade of biting political documentaries (Enron, Supersize me, Wal Mart, Faranheit 911, The Corporation and Bowling for Coloumbine), this was the most inspiring.
Crash
I thought Hollywood could have nothing interesting to add to a conversation on race. This proved me wrong.
Traffic
The other Hollywood entry to surprise me in the decade.
Borat
He stepped over the line, then squatted and shat on it. Great exposé too.
Spirited Away
Because I spent 3 years in Japan, this film was just so natsukashii and beautifully made.
Gangster number 1
Paul McGuigan shows Guy Richie how it is done: Paul Bettany´s dead eyes make this the best British gangster film bar none.
Shaun of the Dead
If only because he refuses to throw a Prince record at the zombie.

As Good As It Gets?

Another month has passed in the Hornets´ season and I have heard nothing from the younger Watford Boy about his views on how our season is shaping up: we lost 5-0 at West Brom in early November but followed that up with two home wins, against Preston (2-0) and Scunthorpe (3-0). Loanee Heidar Helguson got three of those goals, Danny Graham and Tom Cleverley one a piece. The two home wins were followed on successive Saturdays by defeats at Crystal Palace (3-0) and Newcastle (2-0) before victory at home to billionaires QPR tonight, 3-1 – with Lloyd Doyley scoring his first professional goal – took us into the play-off places (albeit for no more than 24 hours).

That, I believe, is probably going to be the highlight of our season. It is true that the Championship is looking very much like a two-horse race at the moment and Newcastle and West Brom will likely end up in the 90 to 100 point zone, while the other four places look increasingly open as teams stutter, start and stop again. Although we seem, in theory, to have as much hope as Leicester, Nottingham Forest, QPR, Swansea or Blackpool of a top six position, (Cardiff and Middlesborough may be inconsistent but have more in reserve), I am just happy that relegation this season now looks highly unlikely and will not be complaining about a mid-table position come May.

It is not that our present position is undeserved, or merely the fact that Watford are the only team in the top half of the division to have a negative goal difference. It is not simply that we have been thoroughly outclassed by other teams in the running like Cardiff and West Brom. It is more to do with the fear that we have a thin squad already and it will probably only get thinner come January. Apparently we are playing some of our best football ever (let´s hope Hoofroyd´s tactics are gone forever) and with a Chelsea 3^rd round FA Cup tie on the horizon and Luton languishing in the Conference, Watford fans should enjoy what we have. Keep the expectations low and we cannot be disappointed. And Malkay, I owe you an apology for doubting your managerial abilities.

Bolivarianism and its critics

Last night we spoke with a Peruvian couple about politics here. The husband, Sergio, repeatedly expressed his disdain for the tactics of the “strike”, which are used throughout the country by the disaffected and disadvantaged to gain recognition for their causes (and have affected us on more than one occasion). I disagreed with him, arguing that this was the only recourse open to the relatively disenfranchised and its effectiveness – roads and rail closed to the tourist dollar – made it a useful method of having their voice heard (since the couple have their own trekking agency, there is no small amount of self-interest involved).

I explained how the miners strike in the UK had been a watershed in our country´s political history and marked the defeat of the workers, whose rights had never been the same, and argued that privitisation had been sold to us as efficiency and profit, whereas it was really job losses and higher prices. By repeatedly referring to the workers as the country, I was able to argue against the “us and them” mentality that the “educated” classes foster: “us”, the enlightened few looking towards the future; “them” the stupid masses stuck in the past. Sergio insisted that “education” was the way forward, which is a subtler take on the position that “I am educated and know what is best. If the people who disagreed with me were as clever/educated as I am, there would be no disagreement because they would see that I am right”. Or as a Venezuelan I knew in London simply repeated time after time, the poor are “estupido”.

Sergio claimed that some of these strikes in Peru were encouraged or inititated by Venezuela´s President, Hugo Chavez, and as he repeated the slurs of the right-wing news: Chavez, “ a charlatan”, Evo Morales: “a Chavez puppet”, I argued for the majority who voted for these men and pointed out that Alan Garcia could be described as a US puppet. Sergio and Jessica consider their president the lesser of two evils, and stated “better the devil you know”, in comparison to Ollanta, the “nationalist” who they seemed to imply hated white people and with whom they associated a return to the violence of the 80s. Their preferred candidate for the 2011 presidential elections is the current Mayor of Lima, Luis Castañeda Lossio, who they see as having turned around an inept and corrupt city government. As for Keiko Fujimori, they felt she had no chance in seventeen months´ time.

Sergio held opinions that I disagreed with but he was a generous listener and claimed at the end of the conversation that he had changed his perspective. For me, it was interesting to delve deeper into the mindset of the opponents of the “new socialism”, “Boliviarianism” or “indigenous movement” that is gaining ground on this continent and was reinforced yesterday with Evo Morales´ landslide reelection in Bolivia.

World Cup Draw 2010

Get ready for South Africa...Group G is the main Group of Death, surely, though D for Death seems a close second. England have a sinch of a group and the cheating French can give Henry a high-five. I feel sorry for Ivory Coast, who deserved an easier group having been in Death Groups before.

A

South Africa

Mexico

Uruguay

France

B

Argentina

South Korea

Nigeria

Greece

C

England

USA

Algeria

Slovenia

D

Germany

Australia

Ghana

Serbia

E

Netherlands

Japan

Cameroon

Denmark

F

Italy

New Zealand

Paraguay

Slovakia

G

Brazil

North Korea

Ivory Coast

Portugal

H

Spain

Honduras

Chile

Switzerland